50 Sentences
by thewordweaves
Summary: Just as the title says, enclosed is the fifty sentence challenge off of Livejournal.  All fifty of these particular sentences pertain to our favorite long nosed sniper!


#01 - Motion: On the rare occasion that the crew lowers its anchor and decides to sleep on solid ground for a change, Usopp squeezes his eyes shut and wonders how on earth he had managed to live - was happy to live - without the constant sway of familiar seas for so long.

#02 - Cool: If there ever has been one thing Usopp is sure of (and he is completely sure of so little), it is the fact that he has never been, is not, and will never be cool, but luckily, he has a crew of monsters for the best compensation he could ever ask for.

#03 - Young: When Usopp looks deep into his crewmates' eyes, he feels so awfully, terribly young; what hope has he to understand the terrors of not only all that they had experienced, but the absolute terror of being _alone_?

#04 - Last: _Nothing lasts,_ Banchina whispered in the haze between wakefulness and fitful sleep, and Usopp clutched at her hands and tried to convince her that she just had to live as long as he did until he realized that she wasn't talking about herself.

#05 - Wrong: Though his mind is occupied with the tears streaming down his face, the choking of his throat, the unclenching of that deep, dark ball that had settled within his stomach and the blessed feeling of Luffy's hand grasping his, a small corner of it whispers that never before had it felt so good to admit that he was wrong.

#06 - Gentle: Usopp sees Nami as mostly defined angles and sharp edges standing at the prow of the ship issuing orders, but finds himself surprised by how she appears to him at night, the cast of her silhouette under the moonlight, the worried tilt of her brows and the gentle punch she issues to his shoulder as she scolds him to never ever leave the ship again.

#07 - One: There can only be one Pirate King, one Greatest Swordsman, one All Blue, but Usopp feels content with his dream not one to squash others down, but to bring himself up so that he may taste but a morsel of the glory that his comrades live in.

#08 - Thousand: As impressed as Luffy always is at Usopp's claims of a thousand followers, he's never too keen on forming a crew that large himself, though he has to admit to Usopp's ribbing that it would make quite a wonderful party if they could just find enough meat.

#09 - King: When Usopp and Franky attempt to play chess (and that whole attempting bit is usually on Usopp's side of things as Franky has an astonishingly impeccable sense of where to put all his pieces), they cannot quite hide their amusement as Luffy perks up every time one of them utters the word "King".

#10 - Learn: The fact that there is a certain danger in being a self-taught chemist is a lesson well learned when Usopp is dragged kicking and screaming out of his workshop without any eyebrows.

#11 - Blur: In the dark of the night, curled in his bunk, Usopp clutches at the hair falling into his face and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes and tries to pretend that Banchina's face is not becoming but a blur in his memory.

#12 - Wait: When Usopp throws Kabuto violently down on the ground, shoves his face into his hands and mutters that he'll never ever be able to catch up in a moment of weakness, Sanji simply gives him a sharp kick over the head and tells him (using as many expletives as possible) that they will always wait for him.

#13 - Change: After a while, Usopp notices that Luffy doesn't actually change-it's the world that changes around _him_.

#14 - Command: Sometimes Usopp felt just a little bit jealous that the girls could get Sanji to follow their every command, but when an elbow jostled his side and he was presented with a dessert far less prettier than the ones the ladies received, Usopp had to concede that he much preferred being shitty long-nose to anything else.

#15 - Hold: Usopp didn't realize how often he held his crewmates - slinging a hasty arm around Luffy's shoulders, tackling Chopper for warmth at a winter island, slapping Franky cheerily on the back, hanging off of Zoro's arm - until they were gone.

#16 - Need: Sure, Usopp doesn't _need_ Sanji's extravagant meals, but after lasting two years on his and Heracles' admittedly meager cooking skills, nothing tasted quite as good or quite as much like home as the buttery pike only Sanji could make - without the mushrooms.

#17 - Vision: The last few days had been an ordeal that Usopp could have never imagined, but they faded into but a blur as his vision focused like they never had before on the true enemy: Not Water 7, not Franky's gang, not Luffy, but those who stole away she who was still his crewmate.

#18 - Attention: When one villager scoffs at Usopp and says, "The stupid brat only does all that for attention," a woman with a weary face shakes her head and replies, "No, he does it for hope."

#19 - Soul: They don't know it, but Usopp recognizes that each of his crewmates are able to tell different tales, just as he does, but while Zoro tells stories of the spirit, only Brook can properly paint the story of the soul.

#20 - Picture: People say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but Usopp swears that he can probably surpass a thousand words in about a minute which is something his crewmates can all grudgingly agree upon.

#21 - Fool: Usopp has always been used to playing the fool, but it's something completely different to have reason to try his hand at playing the hero.

#22 - Mad: When Brook comes down to his workshop, just so he can be near something breathing, warm, _alive_, he utters to Usopp that he's probably quite mad, but Usopp figures that if wanting to be close to people means your mad, he'd much rather be mad than anything else.

#23 - Child: Some of the adults roll their eyes at Usopp spending time with the children of the village, but Usopp simply cannot resist; he can see a breathless sort of exuberance within them that reminds him of himself as a bright-eyed child, and it is this same exuberance that those around him tend to lose as they abandon brighter dreams and settle for reality.

#24 - Now: When he thought about being a pirate, visions of the father he never knew always swam behind his shut eyes, and he thought _later, later, later, you cannot live up to that,_ until an insistent smiling face replaced those visions and a rubbery hand grabbed his hand and proclaimed, _now_.

#25 - Shadow: When Usopp pulled the string of the kabuto taut to issue the most definitive strike of his life, it was not the World Government he saw dancing in his vision, but the shadows lurking behind Robin's genteel smile.

#26 - Goodbye: Usopp thought that saying good bye to Kaya and the village that he loved was one of the hardest things he had to do, but solitude upon the wretchedly green island he landed upon taught him that leaving somebody without saying good bye was even harder.

#27 - Hide: If there was one thing Usopp was better at than everybody else, it was hiding; if asked, he could call himself Master Usopp of the Art of Retreating-Fu, with a minor in Bullshit and a side specialty in Screeching, Screaming and Other Loud Exclamations.

#28 - Fortune: Most people on the crew seem to have a treasure that's all their own, and a small, miserable part of Usopp wonders what his own is now that the ship that was a treasure, a friend and a home all in one is dead.

#29 - Safe: Luffy is the first person Usopp has ever met that treasures danger over safety, and even for one as paranoid and fearful as he is, Usopp finds this sentiment to be oddly intoxicating and completely contagious.

#30 - Ghost: Though Zoro, the self proclaimed atheist, scoffs at Usopp's collection of garlic and lucky charms to ward off ghosts and zombies and creatures from the dead, even he has to admit if a walking skeleton is on their crew, then _anything_ can exist.

#31 - Book: Books were fine for what they were worth, Usopp figured, but the true legends were sacred things that could only be told around a hushed campfire through the gift of gab.

#32 - Eye: To Usopp, little was quite as unsettling as Robin sprouting eyes whenever she felt the need to spy on some secret scene.

#33 - Never: Usopp had always been quite a lot of things (very few of them pleasant), but up until the fated meeting with Kuma, he had never been alone.

#34 - Sing: Although they now had a musician with a trained ear on the ship, nothing pleased Usopp quite so much as bellowing a song with Chopper and Luffy in a hideously off-key voice, if not only to make the poor skeleton cringe.

#35 - Sudden: It's astonishing how each member of the crew can pinpoint the sudden, exact time they stopped being a "me" and turned into a "we", and for Usopp, that was the moment that his _bravery_ was commended for the first time.

#36 - Stop: Usopp understands that Yasopp is a busy man and that he's off having dashing adventures that he can only dream of, but when he thinks back to his mother's sweaty brow and distant eyes, he wishes that he would find it in him to stop his adventures for but a moment so that his family could see him before they lost the opportunity to ever be together again.

#37 - Time: Muscles sore and mind abuzz, Usopp lies in his hammock and listens to Heracles snore gently beside him and wonders whether or not time is suddenly moving as quickly for them as it is for him.

#38 - Wash: As much as he wished he could, and as much as he knew that Frankly was a trusted and true crewmate, Usopp could never wash the image of the cruel masked man that had been seared in his mind.

#39 - Torn: Usopp quietly thanks whatever deity exists that it is him, a sniper, that attends to Chopper; while the rest of his body trembles as he dabs gently at Chopper's torn sides, too bloody, too hurt for one so young, his hands remain steady.

#40 - History: When Robin speaks about history, her eyes light up so brightly that Usopp could positively swear that what history is to her, legend is to him.

#41 - Power: With great power comes great responsibility is an old adage pertaining to devil fruits that Usopp is familiar with, but as far as he's concerned, with great power comes great amusements like seeing how far Luffy's finger can stretch or doing Chopper impressions.

#42 - Bother: When Usopp teases and pokes and nudges and yanks at his crewmates, he knows that half of it for amusement, but half of it is for himself as he desperately hopes that he appears to be more of a bother than a burden.

#43 - God: It's only when Usopp is scaling back up Enel's flying ship that he realizes how far he has come; once upon a time, he shrieked and hid from just a rustle in the bushes, and now he's preparing himself to try and stand up (and probably die) against God.

#44 - Wall: When Sanji leans up against the wall, cigarette draped stylishly from off of his lower lip, he looks undeniably dashing, but when Usopp attempts to mimic this he only manages to achieve the appearance of a long beaked flamingo.

#45 - Naked: Though Usopp is sure of there is one, he cannot remember any incident more embarrassing than Franky walking in on him standing naked in front of the mirror and hopefully poking toothpick-thin arms and his concave chest for any sign of muscle.

#46 - Drive: Sometimes Usopp gloomily wonders if there's some strange aura about him that makes people he thought of as being perfectly reasonable driven to grab onto his nose; as far as he can see, it appears to be most of the world's favorite pastime.

#47 - Harm: For somebody who doesn't like being harmed, Usopp has gained an impressive number of fractures within the past year and was surprised to find that he also gained more lines of stitches than he has fingers and toes.

#48 - Precious: When his precious bandannas become stained a gruesome pink in the wash, Usopp is forced to sit quietly and endure Nami's nimble fingers teasing the numerous tangles from out of his salty curls.

#49 - Hunger: When Usopp described the great warrior who spent fifty days and fifty nights without food, Sanji shot him a look so bone-chillingly foul that he didn't dare even utter the word _starving_ again in his presence.

#50 - Believe: The important thing, the _really_ important thing about stories was that somebody was there to believe in them, Usopp thought-and if people believed in stories, then maybe people could believe in him too.


End file.
